‘How’s Steph?’ Pip said, when the quietness in the car got a little too loud. She’d turned the radio off a while ago; it was too eerie, too aggressively normal in what was the most unnormal drive the three of them would ever take.
‘Um.’ Cara gave a small cough, watching out the window. ‘Yeah, she’s good.’ That was it, silence again. Well, what had Pip expected, involving them in this? Asking too much of them.
Pip’s eyes drew up, catching sight of the McDonalds sign up ahead; her headlights lighting up the golden M until it glowed. It was in a motorway service station, just outside of Beaconsfield. That’s why she and Ravi had picked it. Cameras everywhere.
Pip exited the roundabout and pulled into the service station, into the huge car park that was still heaving with people and cars, even though it had just gone ten.
She rolled forward, waiting for a space near the front, right by the huge grey and glass building. Pulled in, turned off the car.
The silence was even louder, now the engine wasn’t hiding it. Saved by a group of men, clearly drunk, squawking as they stumbled in front of the car and through the doors into the well-lit station.
‘Started early,’ Cara said, nodding at the group, reaching out across the silence.
Pip grabbed at it, with both hands.
‘Sounds like my kind of night out,’ she said. ‘In bed by eleven.’
‘My kind of night out too,’ Cara said, turning around, a small smile on her face. ‘If it ends in chips.’
Pip laughed then, a guttural, hollow laugh that split open into a cough. She was so glad they were here with her, even though she hated herself for having to ask. ‘I’m sorry, for this,’ she said, staring forward at the other groups of people. People on long trips away, or long trips home, or not-very-long trips either way. People on family visits with small, sleepy children, or nights out, or even nights in, picking up food on the way. Normal people living their normal lives. And then the three of them in this car.
‘Don’t be,’ Naomi spoke up now, resting a hand on Pip’s shoulder. ‘You’d do it for us.’
And Naomi was right; she would and she had. She’d kept the secret of the hit-and-run Naomi had been involved in. Pip had found another way to clear Sal’s name, so Cara didn’t lose her father and her sister at the same time. But that didn’t make her feel any better about what she’d asked of them now. The kind of favour you hoped would never need returning.
But hadn’t Pip realized yet? Everything was returning; that full circle, dragging them all back around again.
‘Exactly,’ Cara said, pressing her finger lightly to the badly covered graze on Pip’s cheekbone, as though touching it would tell her what had happened, the thing she’d never know for sure. ‘We just want you to be OK. Just tell us what to do. Lead the way and tell us what to do.’
‘That’s the thing,’ Pip said. ‘We don’t need to do anything, really. Just act normal. Happy,’ she sniffed. ‘Like something bad hasn’t happened.’
‘Our dad killed your boyfriend’s older brother and kept a girl in his loft for five years,’ Cara said quickly with a glance back at Naomi. ‘You have yourself two experts at acting normal.’
‘At your service,’ Naomi added.
‘Thank you,’ Pip said, knowing deep down how inadequate those two words were. ‘Let’s go.’
Pip opened the door and stepped out, taking the rucksack that Cara was handing across to her. She shouldered it and looked around. There was a tall street lamp behind her, lighting up the car park with an industrial yellow glow. Halfway up the pole, Pip could see two dark cameras, one pointed their way. Pip made sure to look up, study the stars for a second, so the camera could capture her face. A million, million lights in the gaping blackness of the sky.
‘OK,’ Naomi said, shutting the back door and gathering her cardigan around herself.
Pip locked the car and they walked together, the three of them, through the automatic doors and into the service station.
It still had that buzz, that same energy all service stations had: that clash of those too heavy-eyed and those too wired, the nearly-theres and the just-beguns. Pip wasn’t either of them. The end wasn’t in sight yet – this long night would be longer still – but she was past the middle of the plan, leaving the ticked boxes behind in the back of her mind. Burying them deep. She just had to keep going. One foot in front of the other. Two hours until she had to meet Ravi.